Posts
The whole teabagging thing started as an astroturf scam by corporate interests trying to block government provided healthcare. However, an actual grassroots movement sprouted from these poisonous seeds, and the corporate masters were losing control. Teabaggers were expressing their own opinions, many of which were unflattering to Wall St. That wouldn't be tolerated for long.
Thus, there should be no sense of surprise that the big teabagger convention was set up to be an exclusionary event. They made people travel long distances, pay for hotel rooms, and pay conference fees during the Great Recession to participate. This wasn't just based on a greedy desire to make a profit. It was even more about a desire to keep the riffraff out.
This gathering of wealthy teabaggers and paid right establishment professionals was quite controversial in the teabagging community. Many middle class members felt that their movement was being taken over, even though it was never really their movement (or a real movement) to begin with. That brings us to the Wasillan Gone Wild: Sarah Palin. Palin was happy to side with the wealthy and corporate interests who rewarded her with $100,000 after she made a speech criticizing Obama for sometimes using a teleprompter while reading notes scribbled on her hand.
Of course, Ms. Palin is hardly the only rightist nutjob joining the GOP's wealthy owners in lashing out at the marginally independent parts of the teabagging mob. Glenn Beck has joined in on the fun, attacking teabagging Texas GOP candidate Debra Medina for comments which may suggest she accepts alternatives to the official 911 narrative. This is ironic for two reasons.
1) Glenn Beck loves, loves, loves conspiracy theories.
2) The official explanation of 911 is a conspiracy theory.
But, this isn't about 911. It's about wealthy and corporate interests trying to reassert control over their own astroturf movement. And, it isn't stopping there.
Redstate.com, a far right blog, was founded by Ben Domenech, whose father is Secretary of Natural Resources for the state of Virginia, and Joshua Treviño, who now runs a PR firm for wealthy and corporate interests. Yet, that blog pretends to be a grassroots venture. They have joined in on the crackdown against independent teabaggers by banning birthers and 911 truthers. The blog even called the birthers "birfers" in order to build their street cred among semi literate Republicans.
The birthers were encoraged wildly by corporate interests and their media. Now that they have outlived their usefulness, they same interests are trying to silence their suckers.
Grassroots folks who have gotten themselves involved in the whole teabagging mess should learn an important lesson from all of this. The wealthy and corporate interests that buy the far right "ideology" you are being fed hold the teabaggers in utter contempt. That goes double for bought politicians like Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin may have gotten involved with Alaska secessionists, and she did throw red meat to the Texas secessionists at the recent Rick Perry rally, but she doesn't care about any of this. All she cares about is herself.
Middle class Americans who are sick of being screwed over have only one real option: the left grassroots. Middle class people on the right can continue to feed their prejudices, or they can start working to feed themselves and their families.
Photos: cornexo
Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Psycho Woman Throws Knives At Children
13 years ago
The stupidity of the right-wing public never ceases to amaze me. They will vote against their own best interests as long as one of their gurus (Lindbaugh, Beck, Palin, O'Reilly, et al.) tells them to jump.
"Middle class people on the right can continue to feed their prejudices, or they can start working to feed themselves and their families.": True. Unfortunately, many of them seem determined to pursue the wrong choice.
Four or five years ago, when the economy was much better than it is now, I was writing about what the "moral values" crowd would do if and when they had to make the choice between food and their "moral values." (As you well know, for them, "moral values" often means semi-overt racism and overt homophobia.)
At the time, I wrote something along the lines of: "When the 'moral values' crowd discovers that they cannot afford to eat and that their jobs are leaving the country, they won't be stupid enough to give up their somewhat comfortable middle-class existence to ensure that them damn queers can't get married."
Now, I see that I was wrong. They are stupid enough.